Call for papers: Intercultural Communication Division, International Communication Association, Cape Town, South Africa, 4-8 June 2026. Deadline: 1 November 2025.
“The Intercultural Communication (ICC) Division welcomes research that applies, extends, or develops theory, method, and analysis to explore how communication intersects with culture in local, national, international, and transnational contexts. We are committed to supporting interdisciplinary research that examines culture, identity, history, and geopolitical relations, and especially invite work grounded in non-Western, decolonial, Indigenous, and underrepresented perspectives from across the globe.
This year’s conference theme, “Communication and Inequalities in Context,” calls on us to reckon with how communication both reflects and reproduces the deep structural inequalities that mark our world. For intercultural communication scholars, this theme underscores the urgency of examining how power operates across and within cultural boundaries through colonial legacies, migration policies, linguistic hierarchies, digital divides, and uneven access to resources. These dynamics are not abstract: they shape people’s lives, sense of belonging, and ability to communicate with dignity and agency.
We therefore invite submissions that interrogate how intercultural communication research can confront, resist, or reimagine these inequalities. What communicative practices foster solidarity, healing, and justice across borders? How do marginalized communities navigate cultural difference amid systemic oppression? What responsibilities do scholars bear in addressing epistemic, material, and institutional imbalances within the field itself? How can our work amplify the voices, languages, and knowledges that are often silenced?
In line with the theme, the ICC Division seeks submissions that ask bold, justice-centered questions and that push our field to think more critically about how we engage difference, power, and global inequities. We particularly encourage contributions that attend to intercultural communication as a site of both struggle and possibility in the face of rising authoritarianism, climate crisis, digital surveillance, and social unrest.”
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 